In order to incorporate climate adaptation in spatial planning change is required, because climate change impacts the way we live. This implies that spatial planning, as the arranger of the spatial organisation and layout needs to be able to support this change. Current spatial planning is not yet well equipped to play this role. In this research article three possible routes to navigate change are explored. Incremental change is seen as a slow process, which modifies the landscape only slightly. Transition is seen as a fluent change towards a new future, which is an improved version of the existing; and transformation is seen as a change towards a future that is fundamentally different from the existing. The three pathways are compared and it is concluded that transformational change offers the best perspective in dealing with uncertain, unexpected and unprecedented futures, such as developing in times of climate change. Therefore, transformation is theoretically further elaborated and it is found that a transformational change to a new system already starts at a time when the existing system still fully operates. The change to a new system (called B in this article) therefore already started and the predecessors of B already existed. These ‘B-minuses’ of the new system can be found through network analysis, where the most intense and connective nodes are the most likely ‘B-minuses’. Alternatively B-minuses can be created through locating the areas where key-nodes and existing infrastructure can be related to existing urban functions. As illustrated in the case-study design, these principles are able to guide the design of a climate proof landscape.

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.